Category: Uncategorized

Khaled Farhan, dubbed The Butcher of Gatineau by the press in 1999 after killing and then dismembering his lover days later, has won parole with the hopes of starting a new, quiet life as a transgender woman at an undisclosed halfway house.
After Farhan’s conviction, she(sic) was sent to a men’s prison, where she(sic) spent some time in solitary confinement. According to prison files, she(sic) was put in solitary confinement in 2010 after sending sexually inappropriate letters to guards.
Farhan was also placed in solitary confinement at her(sic) own request after she(sic) expressed a fear for her(sic) life because she identified as a trans woman. Farhan had no problems after being transferred to a women’s prison.ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/0313-butcher
[category global, trans]

Sharron Davies was stopped by strangers in the street half a dozen times this week. The former Great Britain swimmer – she won a silver medal at the 1980 Moscow Olympics and two Commonwealth golds – is used to being recognised every now and then, but as she walked around Bath on Tuesday, the interactions were of a different kind.

“It was all parents who were just saying to me, ‘Thank you. Thank you for speaking out on this,’” she recalls when we meet at her home near the city. “People didn’t realise what was going on.”

While the first “Women’s Day” was held by American socialists in 1908, it was soon picked up by others worldwide. By 1913, it had reached Russia: one of its founders there was Lenin’s wife, Nadya Krupskaya (they married, quite literally, in Siberian exile).
In 2019, International Women’s Day looks very different. Instead of striking for “peace and bread”, women are more likely to gather for platitudes and breakfast.
While it’s been a public holiday in Russia since it triggered the revolution, these days, it’s like a combination of our Mothers’ and Valentine’s Day, where Russians buy gifts to celebrate the women in their lives.
In the West, more than a century after suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst was arrested on her way to speak at IWD 1914, there are still marches in most cities but far more women take to social media than the streets, posting loving tributes to their favourite women.
While IWD may’ve lost its revolutionary edge, it seems it’s never been more prominent in our consciousness.
That’s in part thanks to a new set of champions: brands.
“This is a palatable and marketable feminism because it is non-threatening: it doesn’t address the devastation wrought by capitalism, misogyny and sexism.”www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-08/international-womens-day-from-revolution-to-breakfast-cupcakes/10879932
[category Aust, worforce discrimination, inequity]

Dr Michael Biggs, an associate professor at Oxford’s Department of Sociology claims the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) has been giving puberty blocking hormones to children, without robust evidence as to the long-term effects.

It comes after the governor of the clinic based in London with the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust resigned last month in protest at its “blinkered” response to doctors who had raised the alarm about “woefully inadequate” care. There is also another centre in Leeds.

Declaring the trial a success, the clinic has continued to treat over a thousand children with the hormones but Dr Biggs’ research suggests that after a year of treatment “a significant increase” was found in patients who had been born female self-reporting to staff that they “deliberately try to hurt or kill myself”.

Parents also reported “a significant increase in behavioural and emotional problems” and a “significant decrease in physical wellbeing” in children born female, he claims. According to his research, there was no positive impact on “the experience of gender dysphoria”, the diagnosis given to those who are described as feeling intensely uncomfortable with their biological sex.

Coffee filters. Monopoly. Windshield wipers. Wireless tech. These very different inventions share one thing in common: they were created by women. Despite their significant contributions, many of these female inventors have gone unrecognized.

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A common IVF treatment marketed as a fertility booster and costing hundreds of dollars is useless and clinics should stop offering it, experts say.
The procedure known as ‘endometrial scratching’ does not offer women a better chance of taking home a baby after IVF, found the largest and most comprehensive trial of the treatment.
Despite a lack of robust evidence, a recent survey found 83 per cent of fertility clinicians in Britain, Australia and New Zealand offer or recommend endometrial scratching at a cost hundreds of dollars to increase the chances of having a baby via IVF.www.smh.com.au/national/snake-oil-the-popular-ivf-therapy-that-has-just-been-proven-useless-20190122-p50syu.html [category global, reproductive rights]

The professional body for family doctors has dropped a course provided by a transgender activist charity because GPs felt it pushed them to guide patients towards gender reassignment.
The course on gender variance, which the Royal College of General Practitioners had hosted on its website since 2015, has been withdrawn.
The college’s decision represents a significant response by the medical establishment at a time of growing disquiet about the surging number of children who are transitioning.www.thetimes.co.uk/article/training-guide-pushed-gps-to-endorse-gender-swaps-0v28x07v8 [category global, trans]

Witnesses and activists have accused Australian Border Force officers of targeting Saudi Arabian women whom they suspect will apply for asylum and blocking them from entering the country when they arrive at Australian airports.

Key points

Australian Border Force officers are accused of targeting Saudi women they suspect will apply for asylum.

Activists say some Saudi women have been questioned about why they are travelling without a male guardian.

At least 80 Saudi women have sought asylum in Australia in recent years.

Activists have also reported that Australian Border Force officials have asked for the phone numbers of women’s male guardians.

“They started to meticulously interrogate girls at the Australian airport at least since August 2017. It is getting worse,” Saudi activist Dr Abdulmohsen said.